Since the early 1900s, Silver Lake has been a magnet for iconoclastic writers, architects and political activists. Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the Hollyhock House for socialist and oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, drew a wave of visionary modernists to the area. Local civil rights advocate Loren Miller spearheaded the fight against housing discrimination. Silver Lake's Black Cat bar and Harry Hay's Mattachine Society were central to the early gay rights movement. Literary artists Anäis Nin and James Leo Herlihy made the neighborhood their home, as did other notables like first lady of baseball Effa Manley and "Hobo Millionaire" James Eads How. Michael Locke and Vincent Brook chronicle these and other people and places that helped make Silver Lake the bohemian epicenter of Los Angeles.
Since the early 1900s, Silver Lake has been a magnet for iconoclastic writers, architects and political activists. Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the Hollyhock House for socialist and oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, drew a wave of visionary modernists to the area. Local civil rights advocate Loren Miller spearheaded the fight against housing discrimination. Silver Lake's Black Cat bar and Harry Hay's Mattachine Society were central to the early gay rights movement. Literary artists Anäis Nin and James Leo Herlihy made the neighborhood their home, as did other notables like first lady of baseball Effa Manley and "Hobo Millionaire" James Eads How. Michael Locke and Vincent Brook chronicle these and other people and places that helped make Silver Lake the bohemian epicenter of Los Angeles.
Historian Hurewitz brings to life a vibrant and all-but-forgotten milieu of artists, leftists, and gay men and women whose story played out over the first half of the twentieth century and continues to shape the entire American landscape. In a hidden corner of Los Angeles, the personal first became the political, the nation's first enduring gay rights movement emerged, and the broad spectrum of what we now think of as identity politics was born. Portraying life over more than forty years in the hilly enclave of Edendale (now part of Silver Lake), Hurewitz considers the work of painters and printmakers, looks inside the Communist Party's intimate cultural scene, and examines the social world of gay men. He discovers why and how these communities, inspiring both one another and the city as a whole, transformed American notions of political identity with their ideas about self-expression, political engagement, and race relations.--From publisher description.
In the years following World War I, the New Orleans French Quarter attracted artists and writers with its low rents, faded charm, and colorful street life. By the 1920s Jackson Square had become the center of a vibrant if short-lived bohemia. A young William Faulkner and his roommate William Spratling, an artist who taught at Tulane University, resided among the "artful and crafty ones of the French Quarter." In Dixie Bohemia John Shelton Reed introduces Faulkner's circle of friends -- ranging from the distinguished Sherwood Anderson to a gender-bending Mardi Gras costume designer -- and brings to life the people and places of New Orleans in the Jazz Age. Reed begins with Faulkner and Spratling's self-published homage to their fellow bohemians, "Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles." The book contained 43 sketches of New Orleans artists, by Spratling, with captions and a short introduction by Faulkner. The title served as a rather obscure joke: Sherwood was not a Creole and neither were most of the people featured. But with Reed's commentary, these profiles serve as an entry into the world of artists and writers that dined on Decatur Street, attended masked balls, and blatantly ignored the Prohibition Act. These men and women also helped to establish New Orleans institutions such as the Double Dealer literary magazine, the Arts and Crafts Club, and Le Petit Theatre. But unlike most bohemias, the one in New Orleans existed as a whites-only affair. Though some of the bohemians were relatively progressive, and many employed African American material in their own work, few of them knew or cared about what was going on across town among the city's black intellectuals and artists. The positive developments from this French Quarter renaissance, however, attracted attention and visitors, inspiring the historic preservation and commercial revitalization that turned the area into a tourist destination. Predictably, this gentrification drove out many of the working artists and writers who had helped revive the area. As Reed points out, one resident who identified herself as an "artist" on the 1920 federal census gave her occupation in 1930 as "saleslady, real estate," reflecting the decline of an active artistic class. A charming and insightful glimpse into an era, Dixie Bohemia describes the writers, artists, poseurs, and hangers-on in the New Orleans art scene of the 1920s and illuminates how this dazzling world faded as quickly as it began.
Early in the 1900s, one-time oil baron Henry Morrison Flagler took interest in the Southern coast of Florida and began developing an exclusive resort community. Establishing a railroad that would allow easier access to the area, he went on to build two hotels—his hope was that America’s first families would come to populate the area. This modest community would later evolve into an iconic American destination, hosting British royalty, American movie stars, and becoming the home-away-from-home to some of the country’s leading families. As the century continued, Palm Beach established itself as a luxury hideaway synonymous with old-world glamour and new-world sophistication. In this splendid volume, longtime resident and Palm Beach social fixture Aerin Lauder takes us through her Palm Beach. From favorite restaurants like Nandos and Renatos, to favorite houses like La Follia and Villa Artemis, she takes us to the elite shopping of Worth Avenue and the scenic walkways of the Lake Worth trail, all the while relating to us the histories, faces, and places that have become so identified with Palm Beach.
The legend of St. Tropez starts with a dog, a rooster, and a martyr; and it leads to movie stars, world-renowned artists and distinguished writers. Located on the sparkling French Riviera, St. Tropez has enjoyed the spotlight for more than half a century, for better or worse, with celebrities flocking to this idyllic locale for its beaches and a dose of Mediterranean sun. A picturesque oasis, St. Tropez has served as inspiration for a who’s who of notable writers from Françoise Sagan to Colette; as well as renowned artists Paul Signac and Henri Matisse; and even filmmakers. However, St. Tropez would not be the same without then belle du jour Brigitte Bardot, her films and lovers and many other famous couples including Annabel and Bernard Buffet and Bianca and Mick Jagger.
This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.
